Appalachian Adventures 2015

Hiker Truths

This last stretch from Hot Springs, NC to Erwin, TN was honestly pretty uneventful. We did about 70 miles in under five full days, and felt really proud about that. We are increasing our miles and are now doing way more 15+ mile days and hope to increase even more this next week. Currently having so much fun zeroing in Erwin with our trail friends Hands, El Mundo, Spaghetti, Light Bulb, and Sloth. Lots of other friends are in town and we hope to meet up later.

Since this week was pretty standard (some glorious days, some rainy days, beautiful miles and wonderful trail family) we thought we would use this blog post to post “trail truths”, or , lessons we learned the first MONTH on the trail. Here you go (and some are crowd sourced from the group today)…

TRAIL TRUTHS:

nothing is waterproof

Wearing the same outfit for a month makes you feel like a cartoon character

Soon, your tent and sleeping bag are way more comfortable and give you a better nights sleep than a hotel

Boys always smell and snore, especially the old ones

Don’t use your knife as your bear bag weight. Georgia will have it forever.

There is ALWAYS one more up hill

The weather report is a lie

The elevation profile is a lie

Trail family is like real family in some ways. You love them, but sometimes you need space

The simple things have never felt so important

Life without an outlook calendar (or knowledge of the date for that matter) is pretty incredible

There are bad days. Days you question your sanity, and days you want to quit

The good days outweigh those bad days by exponential numbers, in quality and quantity.

The trail is truly like the longest and biggest game of telephone you have ever played

It is hard to start calling your girlfriend by her trail name, but once you get used to it it’s even harder to call her by her REAL name

There are ALL KINDS of people on the trail. All kinds

Don’t resupply at outfitters. Dollar General and Walmart are your friends, for this time only

It’s great to dive head-first into nature (not literally though, Ex. The Gentleman)

Dry socks are of the UTMOST importance

You can never have enough snacks. Ever.

Finally, sometimes you just need to relax and color pictures of kittens with your friends:

We enter our fifth or sixth week (no one really knows) when we leave here tomorrow. We are still so loving this adventure and looking forward to all it has to offer after our first month!!!